Colin
I like this the images seem avoided,  left to my imagination
and that is a scary place sometimes
good reading
dc

 shifted it around a bit suggestions only, to have or delete,
[=out, (= in


At the Mujahadeen base, Afghanistan 1989


I remember
the base where we stayed
[as] young observers
 learning about life,
the innocent stream
down from the hill
[and the] trees whose shade we lazed in
while we waited for events [to begin.]

I remember
from the side of my eye
glancing a lone dog,
[large and] threadbare far off,
at night, when I went for water
[seeing it] across the stream,
watching long before I did,
[and] gone(,) when I saw him.

[Only later ]when I thought back
 on youth and war,
like many things
seen afterwards
for what they are
did I realise it was a wolf
living on the margins
of its ravaged land.

I remember
sitting in a truck,
among some fighting men,
the hand too
amicably on my thigh,
what[ I could] not [have] imagined then,
imagined now,
the proximity of the wolf's eye.



"Dewar Colin [FVPC]" wrote:

> At the Mujahadeen base, Afghanistan 1989
>
> I remember the base where we stayed
> as young observers learning about life,
> the innocent stream down from the hill
> and the trees whose shade we lazed in
> while we waited for events to begin.
>
> I remember from the side of my eye
> glancing a lone dog, large and threadbare far off,
> at night, when I went for water
> seeing it across the stream,
> watching long before I did,
> and gone when I saw him.
>
> Only later when I thought back on youth and war,
> like many things seen afterwards for what they are
> did I realise it was a wolf
> living on the margins of its ravaged land.
> I remember sitting in a truck, among some fighting men,
> the hand too amicably on my thigh,
> what I could not have imagined then, imagined now,
> the proximity of the wolf's eye.
>
> Colin